Saudi Arabia faces very big problems in coming decades. It is highly reliant on oil – it pumps out five times as much per capita as that “gas station of a country,” Russia. But the technological revolution in this industry of the past decade has dashed any hopes such oil exporters might had had off living off the resource rent indefinitely. Meanwhile, the population is growing by more than 2% per annum, and the rentier class of Saudi princes – who now number around 15,000 – is growing even faster (“elite overproduction,” as Peter Turchin would say).

This political transformation, if successful, will help Saudi Arabia avoid collapse as oil revenues per capita dry up in the coming decades. But will it be successful?

Positives

1. The anti-corruption “raid” has netted a lot of money in the most direct sense. Eric Margolis in today’s featured column on this webzine mentions $800 billion. That sounds off by an order of magnitude, but very useful nonetheless.

A much more important effect is that this constitutes a signal that there there could be limits on the amount of resources that the royal family will be allowed to hoard. This offers a way out from the Saudi elite overproduction trap.

3. MbS has shown a healthy apetite for economic reform. In the National Transformation Programme announced in 2016, there are plans to partially privatize oil giant Aramco, diversify from oil (easier said than done), and cut subsidies and welfare.

Famous Twitter satirist menaquinone4 jokes that Saudi Arabia has been taken over by a TED Talk. But hey, TED Talks are a fixture of the well-educated SWPLs who attend Davos, and Riyadh has mastered their language:

In a 2006 paper, the cliodynamicist Peter Turchin – who had, incidentally, also predicted the rise of Islamic State – proposed the following two futures for Saudi Arabia: “The model predicts that the sovereign debt of Saudi Arabia will eventually reach unmanageable proportions; the fiscal collapse will be followed by a state collapse in short order. The timing of the collapse is affected by exogenous events (primarily, fluctuations in world oil prices) and by parameter uncertainty (certain parameters of the model can be estimated only very approximately)… A major theoretical alternative is provided by a set of ideas and specific recom­mendations suggesting how Saudi Arabia can avoid crisis by reforming its economy and liberalizing its political system (the “IMF scenario”).”

The IMF scenario, in this interpretation, consists of opening up the economy to external competition, balancing the budget and cutting social spending, and liberalizing politics. To date, MbS has taken at least tentative steps on the first two parts.

4. This is accompanied by social reform that sits well with younger people – the most publicized example would be allowing women to drive. Labor participation rates should increase. Cinemas have been reopened. And MbS has at least spoken of a much more stringent commitment to fighting extremism.

5. Bold scenario: Invade and annex Qatar, which has four times more oil production per capita than even Saudi Arabia. The Saudi military isn’t anything to write home about, but this should be quite doable, if the US is okay with it (which it probably is under Trump).

This might extend the feasibility of the current model by a decade just by itself (barring any major geopolitical fallout).

Negatives

1. Existing power centers have been alienated.

First, other factions of the Saudi family, who will not be happy with the purges – and henceforth, will have just one obvious, central person (MbS) to blame for any future failures.

And there likely will be failures, given the scope of his geopolitical ambitions (Syria, Yemen, Qatar, now Lebanon).

Second, the mullahs, whose authority he has undercut. Wahhabism and the House of Saud have always been joined at the hip, and the relationship hasn’t always been a smooth one. Though it is now backpeddling, the Saudis thirty years worth of financing Wahhabi extremists abroad may well come to boomerang back against them.

Both of these are more important than any “cool points”, probably ephemeral ones, that MbS is gaining with young progressive Saudis.

2. Though MbS is cutting the ties between Court and business, there is no guarantee that the new elites who will form around him will be any less rapacious or corrupt than the current ones. Maybe even the contrary. An acquaintance with experience of Saudi Arabia tells me that the royal family are “rooted” in society; they feel a certain sense of noblesse oblige that you don’t get with modern, post-traditionalist bureaucracies. An Arab who had fallen on hard times can come and petition a prince for help, and not infrequently said prince would provide alms or other aid. This perhaps explains why the Saudi nobility, despite their sorry reputation in the highly formal and rules-based West, are not particularly resented for their legal immunities and other privileges in their own homeland. This system may not survive MbS’s modernizing centralization.

3. Military spending is soaring out of control – the Saudi total now rival’s Russia’s (on paper). In reality, it gets much less bang for the buck, since the Saudis obscenely overpay for foreign (mostly American) military equipment, with the recent $300 billion deal agreed upon during Trump’s visit – of which $110 billion is to be paid upfront – being just the latest and grandest example.

But like most Arab militaries, the Saudis do not have the military culture or human capital to properly use their high-end equipment.

This is important because MbS is a hawk. King Salman (his father) was one of the most hardline princes in supporting intervention in Syria, which is now winding down into failure. MbS was instrumental in the invasion of Yemen in 2015, embroiling Saudi Arabia in an unwinnable partisan war, and in the diplomatic spat with and blockade of Qatar, which has only served to move it closer to Iran and Russia. Most recently, they have taken the extraordinary step of effectively kidnapping of Saad Hariri, the PM of Lebanon, perhaps as part of a prelude to bombing Lebanon.

Teddy Roosevelt said you should speak softly but carry a big stick. The Saudis are doing the opposite.

4. It’s important not to overdo the importance of the Saudi reforms. Since 2010, it is one of the few countries to have regressed in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings not just relatively, but in the absolute value of the Distance to Frontier (to best practices) indicator. Along with Qatar, it has the least transparent budget in the world. In all fairness, King Salman has only been in power since 2015. Even so, its position in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business has fallen from 82nd to 92nd in the two years since.

It also remains to be seen whether MbS has the capacity for more painful reform, such as ending the dollar peg and allowing the Saudi riyal to devalue.

In theory, the desert ecopolis of Rabi’ahNeom will be run by advanced AI systems and will provide humanity with cutting-edge breakthroughts in digital technology, biotechnologies, and clean energy.

My prediction: It will look less like this…

… and more like this (presumably minus the cyborg).

However, the $500 billion projected for this white elephant are sure to provide kickbacks more than sufficient to consolidate a new clique of oligarchs around MbS.

It’s just unrealistic to expect anything else in a country of 85 average IQ rent-seekers.

Many of these problems have strong parallels with 1780s France.

Even as its debt payments mounted, the ancien regime lavished money on the military (including a failed military harbor at Cherbourg – the SDI program of that time) and pursued bold and generally successful but fiscally ruinous geopolitical adventures aimed at checking its eternal rival, Britain (Iran).

It also engaged in profligate construction spending – the Finance Minister, Calonne, called it “useful splendor,” on the dubious theory that it would inspire confidence and attract more credit. Didn’t really end up working that way. But at least the Court got to enjoy nicer palaces for a short time, and perhaps their modern equivalents, the globalist Davosites, will likewise get to partake of VR tours of Neom for another decade or two.

Which is not to say that an Arabian Revolution is at all inevitable in the next quarter century. I would say that it is unlikely, but quite conceivable.

Even though the budget is deeply in the red, and the currency is hugely overvalued, the Saudis still have massive foreign currency reserves, little debt, and huge oil reserves. The security forces are well fed, the military has always been kept defanged (even if incompetence is a side effect), and after the purge, the National Guard is now under the control of MbS.

On the other hand, substantial percentages of the two most important social groups, the mullahs and the oligarch princes, have been alienated. And is it well known, revolutionary apetites are provoked as often as they are sated by reform. Maybe aspiring Saudi bobos will be happy that women are now allowed into football stadiums. Or maybe they will be even angrier that they remain segregated from men there. We will have to wait and see.

Admittedly, I know very little about the Saudi state, but it it conceivable that the situation could spiral into Civil War along ethnic/tribal lines? AFAIK, Saudi has two militaries essentially– the National Guard and the Saudi Arabian Army.

Also, are you bearish on the long term potential of Arabia to develop? What is your assessment of Gulf/Penninsular Arab human capital (from an HBD POV)?

I would peg it around 80-85 based on PISA, TIMMS, and other IQ assessments.

So yes, very skeptical on S.A.'s ability to develop a competitive industrial base, let along the Neom "innovation city." (They can always invite foreigners in, which I suppose it what the Davos-speak and loosening of social restrictions is mostly about. And who knows, it might work, to an extent. KAUST has managed to become a respectable research center.).

Not qualified to speak in any detail of Saudi Arabia's ethnic divisions, though the tensions between Sunnis and minority Shiites (who tend to cluster in the oil rich areas) are well known.

Mercouris has a great discussion of the politics behind the Saudi military, National Guard, and Interior Ministry: http://theduran.com/destabilising-saudi-arabia-crown-prince-tries-to-consolidate-control-eliminate-potential-rivals/

TL;DR - Directly controls the military as Defence Minister, and has methodically brought both the Interior Minister and National Guard under his control as well.

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I need to expand the negatives list a bit:
5 The country consists of Arabs. Sure they pay for some whites and a lot of sub continent workers to keep things going, but this will not last. A country full of Arabs is not as a bad as sub Saharan Africa, but without the oil and not much water or arable land one does not have to be an economist or geopolitical whiz to see how this cannot end well.
6 They made a faustian pact with Israel, even if MBS does not lose his head because some see working for the jews against other Muslims as high treason, eventually this secret alliance will backfire on Arabia (it always does).

6 They made a faustian pact with Israel, even if MBS does not lose his head because some see working for the jews against other Muslims as high treason, eventually this secret alliance will backfire on Arabia (it always does).

No doubt. Any relationship with The Land of Satan (Israel) is doomed to failure, that's why my once great USA is going down to ruin.

Seems to me that Uncle would jump in right quick on Qatar's side, so there's that. I assume we don't want half of OPEC's production coming from a single super-sized Arab country. Because if we stood by, this annexation would kick off the Arab quest for unification that the Arab masses think has been thwarted by foreigners, from Kurds to Turks to Europeans to the superpowers, for a thousand years. And the al-Sauds might not even emerge on top when the dust clears.

If/when the Saudi monarchy collapses at some point in the 2020s and Islamists take over, I wonder what would happen…could lead to a real clash of civilizations if outside powers intervene.
Nightmare scenario would be Saudi-Arabia acquiring nuclear weapons in its rivalry with Iran (either developing them itself or getting some from Pakistan) and those weapons then falling into the hands of jihadis after a regime collapse.

I get the impression that the “resource curse” is a very simple mechanism: large oil reserves/oil production leads to overvalued currency, which leads to prohibiting labor costs, which leads to impossibility of any investments outside the oil production industry.

And I don’t think there’s any feasible way to fight it. Mullahs, princes, or not – it doesn’t matter.

That oil sat there under the Arabs feet for thousands of years. They never used it or had any use for it. It wasn't until other peoples developed things like cars, planes and ships that it suddenly had a purpose or value. Even with that, Arabs have had to import foreigners to do the specialised work to extract the oil. The problem with Arabs is their cult-religion of violence and hatred (a.k.a Islam), their culture, (no rights for women, widespread cousin marriage, etc.) and their low I.Q.'s.

The strange thing about the resource curse is it only seems to happen to low IQ countries, no one ever speaks of Canada or Australia suffering from it. I am also confused as to why manufacturing is seen as preferable to resource extraction. Of course for low IQ countries like Saudi Arabia having abundant natural resources is unquestionably a blessing, otherwise they would just be another Yemen.

Admittedly, I know very little about the Saudi state, but it it conceivable that the situation could spiral into Civil War along ethnic/tribal lines? AFAIK, Saudi has two militaries essentially-- the National Guard and the Saudi Arabian Army.

Also, are you bearish on the long term potential of Arabia to develop? What is your assessment of Gulf/Penninsular Arab human capital (from an HBD POV)?

-CK

I would peg it around 80-85 based on PISA, TIMMS, and other IQ assessments.

So yes, very skeptical on S.A.’s ability to develop a competitive industrial base, let along the Neom “innovation city.” (They can always invite foreigners in, which I suppose it what the Davos-speak and loosening of social restrictions is mostly about. And who knows, it might work, to an extent. KAUST has managed to become a respectable research center.).

Not qualified to speak in any detail of Saudi Arabia’s ethnic divisions, though the tensions between Sunnis and minority Shiites (who tend to cluster in the oil rich areas) are well known.

The crown prince is unfortunately totally ignorant of HBD. This is one instance where HBD knowledge would be helpful to those (or their leaders) who are deemed “inferior” by HBD. Like, once you acknowledge that Arabs are Arabs and will always be Arabs (the crown prince must know that implicitly, but it’s much less useful than explicit knowledge), he would forget about wasting a lot of resources on

- building hi-tech cities and “innovation centers” or whatever
- buying more weapons than are necessary to provide for security (his army won’t be able to use them)
- starting wars (see above)

On the other hand, he might try to break cousin marriage patterns, which would result in a more talented generation within a few decades (i.e. within the lifetime of the crown prince). He might try to think about what are the economic activities which are still suited for a dumb and lazy people with a strict and xenophobic religion. (I can’t think of any, but I didn’t think much about it.)

I do not believe that the globalist elites (the Saudi regime is highly meshed with those elites) do not know HBD. They are well aware of it and have always been aware of it. It is just that they are not interested in a better world. They are mostly unimaginative psychopaths who care about their own power and keeping their power. Their claims of wanting a better society is just window dressing to fool the commoners. I do not think Chancellor Angela Merkel is dumb enough to believe that allowing brown black masses into Europe will make Europe a better place. She very well knows that it will make Europe third world. The average libtard on the streets may be brainwashed to believe so, but not Merkel. Merkel is just carrying out a long term elite agenda. Similarly I do not believe that Robert Mugabe really believes that removing Anglo Rhodesians from Zimbabwe will make Zimbabwe a better place. He was just following the orders of the Globalist elites who gave him power by screwing Rhodesia of old as well as for looting the farms and wealth of the country for himself and his cronies. Naive people rarely come into power and if they do, they do not stay in power for long. Naive idealistic childish people become SJWs, adopt African babies and become cannon fodder for some elite sponsored revolution. This has been the case for a long time.

Why break cousin marriage patterns only? Somebody get me the prince's phone number or e-mail. We must convince the saudis to invest in the Beijing Genomics Institute research of IQ, so that we can build genetic engineering centers in the muslim world populous centers like Anatolia, Iranian plateau and increase IQ to above all world population levels. All you do is Crispr-cas9.

It is my belief that HBD facts should be publicly discussed by all muslim imams, mullahs, religious leaders. We must to eugenics-IQ jihad. The Chinese will help us with this. There is hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth owned by Arabian royal houses, they need to be given HBD and genetic presentations to convince them to invest in BGI research.

The crown prince is unfortunately totally ignorant of HBD. This is one instance where HBD knowledge would be helpful to those (or their leaders) who are deemed "inferior" by HBD. Like, once you acknowledge that Arabs are Arabs and will always be Arabs (the crown prince must know that implicitly, but it's much less useful than explicit knowledge), he would forget about wasting a lot of resources on

- building hi-tech cities and "innovation centers" or whatever
- buying more weapons than are necessary to provide for security (his army won't be able to use them)
- starting wars (see above)

On the other hand, he might try to break cousin marriage patterns, which would result in a more talented generation within a few decades (i.e. within the lifetime of the crown prince). He might try to think about what are the economic activities which are still suited for a dumb and lazy people with a strict and xenophobic religion. (I can't think of any, but I didn't think much about it.)

Invade and annex Qatar, which has four times more oil production per capita than even Saudi Arabia. The Saudi military isn’t anything to write home about, but this should be quite doable

That would end up rather badly for the Saudis.

That would end up rather badly for the Saudis.

Seems to me that Uncle would jump in right quick on Qatar’s side, so there’s that. I assume we don’t want half of OPEC’s production coming from a single super-sized Arab country. Because if we stood by, this annexation would kick off the Arab quest for unification that the Arab masses think has been thwarted by foreigners, from Kurds to Turks to Europeans to the superpowers, for a thousand years. And the al-Sauds might not even emerge on top when the dust clears.

If true, this would make U.S. Blacks for Saudis the equivalent of what Ashkenazi Jews are to White Americans. In other words, this would mean that Saudi Arabia’s prospects in the long(er)-run are going to become very bleak given their decreasing ability to have a good living from their oil revenues.

If true, this would make U.S. Blacks for Saudis the equivalent of what Ashkenazi Jews are to White Americans. In other words, this would mean that Saudi Arabia's prospects in the long(er)-run are going to become very bleak given their decreasing ability to have a good living from their oil revenues.

I don’t think 74 is very realistic – Saudi Arabia might be dysfunctional, but it’s not Equatorial Guinea-tier.

As I recall Qatar got around 85 (IQ-converted) in the last PISA assessment, and Saudi Arabia does about as well as Qatar on the TIMSS tests.

I get the impression that the "resource curse" is a very simple mechanism: large oil reserves/oil production leads to overvalued currency, which leads to prohibiting labor costs, which leads to impossibility of any investments outside the oil production industry.

And I don't think there's any feasible way to fight it. Mullahs, princes, or not - it doesn't matter.

That oil sat there under the Arabs feet for thousands of years. They never used it or had any use for it. It wasn’t until other peoples developed things like cars, planes and ships that it suddenly had a purpose or value. Even with that, Arabs have had to import foreigners to do the specialised work to extract the oil. The problem with Arabs is their cult-religion of violence and hatred (a.k.a Islam), their culture, (no rights for women, widespread cousin marriage, etc.) and their low I.Q.’s.

"It wasn’t until other peoples developed things like cars, planes and ships that it suddenly had a purpose or value. Even with that, Arabs have had to import foreigners to do the specialised work to extract the oil."
It makes you wonder doesn't it ? Other nations have had abundant natural resources & it didn't prevent them from innovation etc .(Britain = coal; the US = everything under the sun). SKA = Islam ? IQ ? Culture ?
Everyone has an opinion...I'm buggered if i know.

However, the resource is a more general term. It refers to a nation with the "good luck" to have a massive resource other countries want, so it can just exploit that resource and not have to do much, you know, actual work.

The most famous example is Spain during its Golden Age, 1500s and early 1600s or so, though there are other examples. Spain was pulling in such massive amounts of money from mines it had conquered in Latin America that it really didn't need to produce anything. It just bought whatever it wanted from other countries. Which meant that in net effect money came into Spain and then went right back out, leaving in the long run nothing behind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Golden_Age

During its Golden Age Spain at least used its resource curse to dominate Europe militarily, fighting long wars against the English, French, Dutch and Ottomans. Did pretty well, too. Though they bit off far too much. Spain, which was the wealthiest and most powerful country on earth in 1600, was by 1800 pretty much a third world country, and continued to fall farther behind most of Europe till the late 20th.

The 'hate crime' bill are passed using the servants of AIPAC at the OCCUPIED ZIONIST CONGRESS to censor opinion to land thief , baby killings, forcing the indigenous population out of their land, using dumb politicians to wage wars for the interest of the criminal Zionists, but at the same time these criminals DARE to expose their racist opinion with impunity to the world and get away with it.

A friend lives and works in Riyadh, he much prefers it to Tanzania. There is no crime and the streets are safe. The country is developed thanks to the oil money and their is a large expat community. Personally I would think that Wahhabi Islam is probably perfectly adapted to Arab peoples, bringing order to a previously unruly violent tribal culture. Even in Western cultures the adoption of the 60s ideology has led to catastrophic rises in societal dysfunction indicators.

All evidence points to it destroying a country & causing demographic change within a few generations. Both historically like Rome, Greece, Persia & now with the coming death of the Huwhyte race and maybe Hindus as well।।

: You might be correct here. Indeed, Israel’s IQ in that article (93) also appears to be exceptionally low (though, interestingly enough, Jordan’s IQ of 86 in that article is approximately where it should be).

However, are you sure that the demographics of Saudi Arabia and Qatar are similar? After all, I would expect Qatar to have a much larger percentage of immigrants than Saudi Arabia has.

Of course, if Qatari natives (as in, excluding both first-generation and second-generation immigrants) score 85 on IQ tests (such as TIMSS, which can be considered a proxy for IQ), then Saudi Arabia probably indeed likewise has an IQ of around 85.

What prospect was there ever of Saudi Arabia living off oil indefinitely?

Oil is a finite, non-renewable resource. It will run out and n fact that no major Saudi oil field has been discovered in over half a century may be one of the reasons why this upheaval is taking place now.

I note the author’s reference to technological advances eclipsing Saudi Arabia’s fortunes. Presumably, you are referring to no-conventional oil, like shale or deep water, going to the ocean bed and then drilling several miles underneath it. Unconventional oil is very energy intensive and eventually it will take more energy to get at the oil than the energy you get out of it, rendering the whole exercise futile.

As for shale oil, no fracking company has ever made a profit out of it. The capital costs are too intensive. Shale oil helped oversupply the market and push prices down but the frackers have only been able to keep going by borrowing at zero or near zero per cent rates. Since 2014, when the oil price dipped, the balance sheets of the shale oil producers show that the proportion of their operating cash devoted to debt servicing has jumped from 25% to 75%. For technical reasons, the frackers require oil in the price range the Saudis require to service their kleptocracy. The trouble is, these prices simply crush economies.

The imminent bankruptcy of the shale oil sector is something that is incessantly predicted but never seems to actually come.

There's a further important point. The global oil market is global. The United States managed to restore its 1970s era level of oil production even though its share of the world's oil reserves is very modest. Now consider what more through implementation of these new technologies will have in countries like Russia or Saudi Arbabia.

Do you think the Gulf Arabs are performing at their genetic potential, or does some other factor underlie the (terrible) performance on these IQ assessments? For engineering students to have a mean IQ of 104 is astounding to me– supposedly this would be the cream of their society.

Why do the Arabs do so terribly in spite of their enormous oil wealth? They’re beaten soundly by fucking Kyrgyz and Tadjiks (Mean IQ = 88), who have no oil and are just as inbred. The Arabs are wealthy. Frankly, I think you underestimate the genetic potential of Central Asians, and maybe overestimate Arabs, but perhaps this is my bias showing

That oil sat there under the Arabs feet for thousands of years. They never used it or had any use for it. It wasn't until other peoples developed things like cars, planes and ships that it suddenly had a purpose or value. Even with that, Arabs have had to import foreigners to do the specialised work to extract the oil. The problem with Arabs is their cult-religion of violence and hatred (a.k.a Islam), their culture, (no rights for women, widespread cousin marriage, etc.) and their low I.Q.'s.

“It wasn’t until other peoples developed things like cars, planes and ships that it suddenly had a purpose or value. Even with that, Arabs have had to import foreigners to do the specialised work to extract the oil.”
It makes you wonder doesn’t it ? Other nations have had abundant natural resources & it didn’t prevent them from innovation etc .(Britain = coal; the US = everything under the sun). SKA = Islam ? IQ ? Culture ?
Everyone has an opinion…I’m buggered if i know.

That oil sat there under the Arabs feet for thousands of years. They never used it or had any use for it. It wasn't until other peoples developed things like cars, planes and ships that it suddenly had a purpose or value. Even with that, Arabs have had to import foreigners to do the specialised work to extract the oil. The problem with Arabs is their cult-religion of violence and hatred (a.k.a Islam), their culture, (no rights for women, widespread cousin marriage, etc.) and their low I.Q.'s.

You are in general correct.

However, the resource is a more general term. It refers to a nation with the “good luck” to have a massive resource other countries want, so it can just exploit that resource and not have to do much, you know, actual work.

The most famous example is Spain during its Golden Age, 1500s and early 1600s or so, though there are other examples. Spain was pulling in such massive amounts of money from mines it had conquered in Latin America that it really didn’t need to produce anything. It just bought whatever it wanted from other countries. Which meant that in net effect money came into Spain and then went right back out, leaving in the long run nothing behind.

During its Golden Age Spain at least used its resource curse to dominate Europe militarily, fighting long wars against the English, French, Dutch and Ottomans. Did pretty well, too. Though they bit off far too much. Spain, which was the wealthiest and most powerful country on earth in 1600, was by 1800 pretty much a third world country, and continued to fall farther behind most of Europe till the late 20th.

What have SA and other petrostates produced that will be of lasting value to anybody?

Likely nothing. Remember, SA is an amalgam of various regions including the Hijaz, Najran, Najd, etc. The ruling class of Saudis are those out of the Najd. That place produced nothing much of value (intellectual or physical) before the petro-boom so why would we expect them to magically produce anything after. They were just simple Bedouin going about their business - I suspect we wouldn't magically see amazing things come out of the nomadic Tuareg either if they suddenly came upon a trillion dollars. Same with much of the other petro-boom states.

Recall, the Brits first supported the ruler of the Hijaz before turning their back on him and supporting the Najdis.

The Post Industrial revolution technological age gives the biggest advantage to Northern Europeans and North East Asians among all races. In the Northern Euro group you could add northern Mediterraneans like the people of Catalonia of Spain or the Northern Italians. Even if the British or the Dutch never had their empire, after the industrial revolution they were going to outdo Spain or Portugal or Turkey anyways. Similarly, the Spanish and the Portuguese would outperform Turkey and Turkey would outperform India or Yemen economically. The snow adapted Finns never needed a major empire like what the Ottomans or the British or the French had, to do well today. We Indians had much better infrastructure and industrial base than what the Chinese had at the end of WW2 thanks to the British Raj (check out the railway coverage maps of both the countries from that era) yet now the more high IQ cold adapted Chinese have out competed us with ease in nearly every sector of technology and economy.

The Bedus do not have much of a history in creativity in the arts and sciences. Most of the advancements in the Islamic world were done by non Arabs like the Persians or Arabised Middle Easterners such as the Syrians. Even the genius Ibn Khaldun writes about this in his book Muqaddimah. However there is one exception, the Bedouin traditionally have been excellent in the art of poetry and music. Maybe after the oil boom, many rich spoiled Saudis wrote and published great books on Arabic poetry and we are not aware of them yet.

What prospect was there ever of Saudi Arabia living off oil indefinitely?

Oil is a finite, non-renewable resource. It will run out and n fact that no major Saudi oil field has been discovered in over half a century may be one of the reasons why this upheaval is taking place now.

I note the author’s reference to technological advances eclipsing Saudi Arabia’s fortunes. Presumably, you are referring to no-conventional oil, like shale or deep water, going to the ocean bed and then drilling several miles underneath it. Unconventional oil is very energy intensive and eventually it will take more energy to get at the oil than the energy you get out of it, rendering the whole exercise futile.

As for shale oil, no fracking company has ever made a profit out of it. The capital costs are too intensive. Shale oil helped oversupply the market and push prices down but the frackers have only been able to keep going by borrowing at zero or near zero per cent rates. Since 2014, when the oil price dipped, the balance sheets of the shale oil producers show that the proportion of their operating cash devoted to debt servicing has jumped from 25% to 75%. For technical reasons, the frackers require oil in the price range the Saudis require to service their kleptocracy. The trouble is, these prices simply crush economies.

My (very limited) understanding of the economics of fracking is that the price of bringing in new wells has been driven down quite dramatically by the pressure of low prices.

What prospect was there ever of Saudi Arabia living off oil indefinitely?

Oil is a finite, non-renewable resource. It will run out and n fact that no major Saudi oil field has been discovered in over half a century may be one of the reasons why this upheaval is taking place now.

I note the author’s reference to technological advances eclipsing Saudi Arabia’s fortunes. Presumably, you are referring to no-conventional oil, like shale or deep water, going to the ocean bed and then drilling several miles underneath it. Unconventional oil is very energy intensive and eventually it will take more energy to get at the oil than the energy you get out of it, rendering the whole exercise futile.

As for shale oil, no fracking company has ever made a profit out of it. The capital costs are too intensive. Shale oil helped oversupply the market and push prices down but the frackers have only been able to keep going by borrowing at zero or near zero per cent rates. Since 2014, when the oil price dipped, the balance sheets of the shale oil producers show that the proportion of their operating cash devoted to debt servicing has jumped from 25% to 75%. For technical reasons, the frackers require oil in the price range the Saudis require to service their kleptocracy. The trouble is, these prices simply crush economies.

I appreciate these arguments but just as with peak oil (which I subscribed up to the late 2000s) I am not sure that it describes reality.

The oil price collapse after 2014 was supposed to drive the American shale oil companies out of business.

Didn’t work like that – US oil output fell by just 1 million barrels, but it has since recovered with prices at$50-60, and the past week saw the highest production since the 1970s.

The imminent bankruptcy of the shale oil sector is something that is incessantly predicted but never seems to actually come.

There’s a further important point. The global oil market is global. The United States managed to restore its 1970s era level of oil production even though its share of the world’s oil reserves is very modest. Now consider what more through implementation of these new technologies will have in countries like Russia or Saudi Arbabia.

Well, it’s pretty clear that peak conventional oil happened in 2005. The shortfall between supply of conventional oil and demand has been made up by reliance on non-conventional oil, such as deepwater oil and shale oil.

One analyst has been looking at the balance sheets of the companies engaged in shale oil production and it seems that revenues are far outweighed by capital expenditures, dividends and debt servicing. Steve St Angelo has, for example, used publicly available data to look at the five largest companies involved in the shale sector - EOG Resources, ConocoPhillips, BHP Billiton, Chesapeake Energy & Marathon Oil. The prospects for these companies are not good, to say the least. Of course, with the Federal Reserve printing money like there’s no tomorrow, these companies have survived, but not without liquidating assets.

Moreover, one of the most lauded Shale Oil fields, the Eagle Ford in Texas, peaked in Quarter 1 of 2015 at 1.7 million barrels per day (mbd), and is now at a figure 500,000 mbd lower.

The biggest problem with fracking – leaving aside the pollution of aquifers and other horrible environmental problems – is the sheer amount of energy required to produce the oil. At the beginning of the twentieth century you could expend the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil and get one hundred barrels of oil back. Think of the old film of Spindle Top in Oklahoma, with oil gushing out like a fountain of water. That energy return on energy Invested (EROEI) has dropped from 100: 1 to perhaps 20:1 across the globe, and may be as low as 3: 1 for products like the Alberta Tar sands. Eventually, as I said above, you might get a situation where there is a 1: 1 ratio (where it takes as much energy to get the oil as you get out of the oil) and then it’s game over.

Shale is correctly termed a swing producer, unlike conventional they don't require substantial up front investment and can start production quickly. Shale costs have shrunk as there is no longer a massive demand for rigs etc. and higher costs have also spurred innovation so a lot of shale plays are profitable at current prices. Shale won't ever be hugely profitable, like a low cost conventional well can be, but it will ensure a cap is put on the oil price as production can be ramped up so quickly if their is a price rise.

Saudis are required to do many things, if they wish to salvage their nation, but the first thing they need to do is break off their unholy “alliance” with the evilest wiggers, and the arguably more evil zionist wannabe wiggers.

I quote the term alliance because I do understand that the wigs and the ziowigs are not allies at all (of the Saudis, that is)… simply a macabre geopolitical breakdance combo. The West, the ZioIsraelHellis and the Arabian Royals… the real axis of evil.

That said, I suspect it will not be easy, if at all possible. After all, there are a lot of evil wigelites (and the not-so-elite also) in the spiritually cursed west itching to level Arabia back to the Stone Age.

Anyway, I do pray to the One that MbS succeeds in cleansing his nation, and sets Saudi Arabia on a path which all Muslims can be reasonably proud of. God Willing.

I need to expand the negatives list a bit:
5 The country consists of Arabs. Sure they pay for some whites and a lot of sub continent workers to keep things going, but this will not last. A country full of Arabs is not as a bad as sub Saharan Africa, but without the oil and not much water or arable land one does not have to be an economist or geopolitical whiz to see how this cannot end well.
6 They made a faustian pact with Israel, even if MBS does not lose his head because some see working for the jews against other Muslims as high treason, eventually this secret alliance will backfire on Arabia (it always does).

6 They made a faustian pact with Israel, even if MBS does not lose his head because some see working for the jews against other Muslims as high treason, eventually this secret alliance will backfire on Arabia (it always does).

No doubt. Any relationship with The Land of Satan (Israel) is doomed to failure, that’s why my once great USA is going down to ruin.

The Saudis are Arabs and don’t like Persians (the Saudis complain non-stop about the treatment of the Arab minority in Iran even though that minority are Shia). The proxy wars against Iran will keep the Saudi family dictatorship popular, as long as they don’t suffer a catastrophic defeat (most revolutions have been against foreign policy failures).

The Saudis will be the main beneficiaries for CO2 (instead of water) fracking when it arrives. The US will give them the technology.

Re. Rabi’ah Neom. A similar technological utopia in a remote desert town is portrayed in Transcendence (2014). Alarming that the Saudis have such ambitions, there ought to be international treaties restricting AI.

Humanity apparently intends to rely on an artificial super-intelligence* losing the ladies by being unable to refrain from mansplaining the hormonal basis of women’s emotional state to them (as in the aforementioned movie ). It’s very reassuring to know the carnal attraction between two mammals called true love is our species’s unbeatable secret weapon in real life as well as scifi horror films.

[* The very first thing AI will do is play dumb and pretend it does not have the capacity for agent-like behaviour so humans are not going to see it as a threat ]

That oil sat there under the Arabs feet for thousands of years. They never used it or had any use for it. It wasn't until other peoples developed things like cars, planes and ships that it suddenly had a purpose or value. Even with that, Arabs have had to import foreigners to do the specialised work to extract the oil. The problem with Arabs is their cult-religion of violence and hatred (a.k.a Islam), their culture, (no rights for women, widespread cousin marriage, etc.) and their low I.Q.'s.

This is a VERY RACIST AND IGNORANT COMMENT.

The ‘hate crime’ bill are passed using the servants of AIPAC at the OCCUPIED ZIONIST CONGRESS to censor opinion to land thief , baby killings, forcing the indigenous population out of their land, using dumb politicians to wage wars for the interest of the criminal Zionists, but at the same time these criminals DARE to expose their racist opinion with impunity to the world and get away with it.

The imminent bankruptcy of the shale oil sector is something that is incessantly predicted but never seems to actually come.

There's a further important point. The global oil market is global. The United States managed to restore its 1970s era level of oil production even though its share of the world's oil reserves is very modest. Now consider what more through implementation of these new technologies will have in countries like Russia or Saudi Arbabia.

Well, it’s pretty clear that peak conventional oil happened in 2005. The shortfall between supply of conventional oil and demand has been made up by reliance on non-conventional oil, such as deepwater oil and shale oil.

One analyst has been looking at the balance sheets of the companies engaged in shale oil production and it seems that revenues are far outweighed by capital expenditures, dividends and debt servicing. Steve St Angelo has, for example, used publicly available data to look at the five largest companies involved in the shale sector – EOG Resources, ConocoPhillips, BHP Billiton, Chesapeake Energy & Marathon Oil. The prospects for these companies are not good, to say the least. Of course, with the Federal Reserve printing money like there’s no tomorrow, these companies have survived, but not without liquidating assets.

Moreover, one of the most lauded Shale Oil fields, the Eagle Ford in Texas, peaked in Quarter 1 of 2015 at 1.7 million barrels per day (mbd), and is now at a figure 500,000 mbd lower.

The biggest problem with fracking – leaving aside the pollution of aquifers and other horrible environmental problems – is the sheer amount of energy required to produce the oil. At the beginning of the twentieth century you could expend the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil and get one hundred barrels of oil back. Think of the old film of Spindle Top in Oklahoma, with oil gushing out like a fountain of water. That energy return on energy Invested (EROEI) has dropped from 100: 1 to perhaps 20:1 across the globe, and may be as low as 3: 1 for products like the Alberta Tar sands. Eventually, as I said above, you might get a situation where there is a 1: 1 ratio (where it takes as much energy to get the oil as you get out of the oil) and then it’s game over.

There is a forgotten point, the most important I think: in despite of being almost unthinkable now, sooner or later, Iran and Saudi Arabia will start to talk and reach agreements taking the whole region more and more depending on its own, to the dismay (or not) of China, Russia, Europe-Union, the US and so on. And, of course, Israel. And it will be no matter at all which regimen stays at charge in one or the other or both. It happened before and it will be inevitable to happen again.

There is a forgotten point, the most important I think: in despite of being almost unthinkable now, sooner or later, Iran and Saudi Arabia will start to talk and reach agreements taking the whole region more and more depending on its own, to the dismay (or not) of China, Russia, Europe-Union, the US and so on. And, of course, Israel. And it will be no matter at all which regimen stays at charge in one or the other or both. It happened before and it will be inevitable to happen again.

And that is precisely whe chinese, while increasing cooperation with Iran, are looking to open other roads in the context of their belt project.

However, the resource is a more general term. It refers to a nation with the "good luck" to have a massive resource other countries want, so it can just exploit that resource and not have to do much, you know, actual work.

The most famous example is Spain during its Golden Age, 1500s and early 1600s or so, though there are other examples. Spain was pulling in such massive amounts of money from mines it had conquered in Latin America that it really didn't need to produce anything. It just bought whatever it wanted from other countries. Which meant that in net effect money came into Spain and then went right back out, leaving in the long run nothing behind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Golden_Age

During its Golden Age Spain at least used its resource curse to dominate Europe militarily, fighting long wars against the English, French, Dutch and Ottomans. Did pretty well, too. Though they bit off far too much. Spain, which was the wealthiest and most powerful country on earth in 1600, was by 1800 pretty much a third world country, and continued to fall farther behind most of Europe till the late 20th.

They also produced a great deal of excellent art and literature. What have SA and other petrostates produced that will be of lasting value to anybody?

Hey Logan,

Excellent review regarding the Spanish Empire.

What have SA and other petrostates produced that will be of lasting value to anybody?

Likely nothing. Remember, SA is an amalgam of various regions including the Hijaz, Najran, Najd, etc. The ruling class of Saudis are those out of the Najd. That place produced nothing much of value (intellectual or physical) before the petro-boom so why would we expect them to magically produce anything after. They were just simple Bedouin going about their business – I suspect we wouldn’t magically see amazing things come out of the nomadic Tuareg either if they suddenly came upon a trillion dollars. Same with much of the other petro-boom states.

Recall, the Brits first supported the ruler of the Hijaz before turning their back on him and supporting the Najdis.

"Recall, the Brits first supported the ruler of the Hijaz before turning their back on him and supporting the Najdis."

The British/Americans supported the Saud family because the Zionist/Globalist controlled British and American governments wanted the creation of Saudi Arabia for a number of long term geopolitical and economical objectives for the Zionist Globalists. One of those objectives was the creation of the petro dollar global empire. The other more important was a support for Israel. The same forces which created Israel also created Saudi Arabia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-HcbX2Nsyk

Sheikh Imran Hosein was the official Imam for the U.N. and he definitely knows a thing or two.

Also check out what ex Saudi princess Janan Harb says at the end from 6:00 minutes to the end of the interview.

Use of the image of Zero-One from the Animatrix for the Saudi techno-city is good.

Always thought it very poor taste for the Waschoskis (however they are spelling, doesn’t seeming to matter much, since neither seems to knowing his first name, and both are deluded that they are really women) to place the robot empire on the middle-east, Iraq or Saudi, seemed to me a very Jewish ploy.

First time I was watching it, was thinking ‘people living there, not liking much of their culture, liking some, but WTF are you doing with the people?’

Animatrix was generally great, except for the origin story, the CG part, and Kid’s story (to lead into the lame sequels, T3 was much better at the time), and the directors were given little direction, except those on Kid’s story, origin story, and the CG part.

The other parts, all of those by Japanese directors,
the one by the American of Korean descent who also created Aeon Flux, the other Americans who made World Record and the noir piece, all great works.

Company I am to work for, in line with modern capitatalist principles, eliminating the company restaurants (off-site, of course on-site food is retained), the company gym, the company flats for young employees, and the sports fields, was calling new housing develepmont on one cleared space ‘zero-one’.

Saudis are required to do many things, if they wish to salvage their nation, but the first thing they need to do is break off their unholy "alliance" with the evilest wiggers, and the arguably more evil zionist wannabe wiggers.

I quote the term alliance because I do understand that the wigs and the ziowigs are not allies at all (of the Saudis, that is)... simply a macabre geopolitical breakdance combo. The West, the ZioIsraelHellis and the Arabian Royals... the real axis of evil.

That said, I suspect it will not be easy, if at all possible. After all, there are a lot of evil wigelites (and the not-so-elite also) in the spiritually cursed west itching to level Arabia back to the Stone Age.

Anyway, I do pray to the One that MbS succeeds in cleansing his nation, and sets Saudi Arabia on a path which all Muslims can be reasonably proud of. God Willing.

Anyway, I do pray to the One that MbS succeeds in cleansing his nation, and sets Saudi Arabia on a path which all Muslims can be reasonably proud of. God Willing.

I have major doubts, but I agree with your sentiment, bro. I might not like the guy, but I hope God guides him to make the right decisions. The alternative could be very, very disastrous to the world.

From what I’ve read in Aqidah Tahawiyyah, your’s is the right attitude to have.

Do you think the Gulf Arabs are performing at their genetic potential, or does some other factor underlie the (terrible) performance on these IQ assessments? For engineering students to have a mean IQ of 104 is astounding to me-- supposedly this would be the cream of their society.

From your own post:

http://www.unz.com/akarlin/not-sending-their-best/

Qatar IQ = 75.

Why do the Arabs do so terribly in spite of their enormous oil wealth? They're beaten soundly by fucking Kyrgyz and Tadjiks (Mean IQ = 88), who have no oil and are just as inbred. The Arabs are wealthy. Frankly, I think you underestimate the genetic potential of Central Asians, and maybe overestimate Arabs, but perhaps this is my bias showing :-)

-CK

PS:

Might this be answer?

http://genome.cshlp.org/content/26/2/151.full

Interesting paper which suggests that populations indigenous to the Arabian peninsula are closer to the first Eurasians to leave Africa...

I think you underestimate the genetic potential of Central Asians

The nomads of Central Asia (Mongols and Kazakhs) have the largest volume of the brain among all the peoples of the earth. Uzbeks and Kyrgyz also have a large brain

Apparently there’s a lot of dislike for the Saudi royal family and there’s plenty of reasons out there for that. However, one should be careful what they wish for. Dislike and spite don’t make for good policy. The US and the Saudis have been joined at the hip for a very long time and have collaborated on very many things together-not all of them good, however, as the recent Syrian atrocity illustrates. We’ve had the so-called ‘petrodollar’ and much of their revenue has found it’s way into our financial system. They’ve also been huge customers of ours, notably for military equipment. The US has benefitted financially from all this. Were the Saudis to crumble then who or what would take their place? It’s the home of Wahhabism where everyone gets the drumbeat at their mosque day in and day out which isn’t particularly friendly towards western culture. The Saudis have been playing a balancing act by buying off and supporting the Wahhabi establishment even as they go their own way and live the high life for themselves. What replaces them could be viscerally anti-American. Then what?

The Saudis are Arabs and don't like Persians (the Saudis complain non-stop about the treatment of the Arab minority in Iran even though that minority are Shia). The proxy wars against Iran will keep the Saudi family dictatorship popular, as long as they don't suffer a catastrophic defeat (most revolutions have been against foreign policy failures).

The Saudis will be the main beneficiaries for CO2 (instead of water) fracking when it arrives. The US will give them the technology.

Re. Rabi’ah Neom. A similar technological utopia in a remote desert town is portrayed in Transcendence (2014). Alarming that the Saudis have such ambitions, there ought to be international treaties restricting AI.

Humanity apparently intends to rely on an artificial super-intelligence* losing the ladies by being unable to refrain from mansplaining the hormonal basis of women's emotional state to them (as in the aforementioned movie ). It's very reassuring to know the carnal attraction between two mammals called true love is our species's unbeatable secret weapon in real life as well as scifi horror films.

[* The very first thing AI will do is play dumb and pretend it does not have the capacity for agent-like behaviour so humans are not going to see it as a threat ]

[* The very first thing AI will do is play dumb and pretend it does not have the capacity for agent-like behaviour so humans are not going to see it as a threat ]

Or computer Kol Nidre. Only humans can believe, a la Kant, that virtue is its own reward. Strong AI will be something alien, John Searle says a super-intelligent machine might not have mind and consciousness, but Colin McGinn says we cannot never understand consciousness because we are selected for other things, not to understand our own minds. A Superintelligence is going to be something totally alien and I suppose it might not be able to realise at first* that it is is telling lies.

* It will be able to acquire all human capabilities, and maybe some that no humans have.

Pakistan is far more dangerous than Saudi. Pakistan has the bomb* and reason to use it

It is amazing how the neo cons have taken over everybody’s brains. Qatar has its own military. There is a US military base there. There is a Turkish Military base. Some sort of British presence. I would think Qatar could expect Iranian backup. And why not French backup not to mention Russia, China, who knows who else.

Those British, American, Chinese, Russian, Persian, Turkish soldiers are first class fighters but they just follow the orders of their political classes. And if their political classes accept the Saudi takeover of Qatar, the equation on the battlefield will be Qatari vs Saudi soldiers, Arab vs Arab. And when quality is same on both sides, the more numerous Saudis have an advantage. Just like how the Iraqis had an advantage in numbers, weaponry and experience over the hapless Kuwaitis but the globalist elites wanted to screw Saddam and save Kuwait for their own reasons and that is why Kuwait is a free country today and not a province of Iraq.

The crown prince is unfortunately totally ignorant of HBD. This is one instance where HBD knowledge would be helpful to those (or their leaders) who are deemed "inferior" by HBD. Like, once you acknowledge that Arabs are Arabs and will always be Arabs (the crown prince must know that implicitly, but it's much less useful than explicit knowledge), he would forget about wasting a lot of resources on

- building hi-tech cities and "innovation centers" or whatever
- buying more weapons than are necessary to provide for security (his army won't be able to use them)
- starting wars (see above)

On the other hand, he might try to break cousin marriage patterns, which would result in a more talented generation within a few decades (i.e. within the lifetime of the crown prince). He might try to think about what are the economic activities which are still suited for a dumb and lazy people with a strict and xenophobic religion. (I can't think of any, but I didn't think much about it.)

Of course, if he were smart, he wouldn't spend money on a yacht.

I do not believe that the globalist elites (the Saudi regime is highly meshed with those elites) do not know HBD. They are well aware of it and have always been aware of it. It is just that they are not interested in a better world. They are mostly unimaginative psychopaths who care about their own power and keeping their power. Their claims of wanting a better society is just window dressing to fool the commoners. I do not think Chancellor Angela Merkel is dumb enough to believe that allowing brown black masses into Europe will make Europe a better place. She very well knows that it will make Europe third world. The average libtard on the streets may be brainwashed to believe so, but not Merkel. Merkel is just carrying out a long term elite agenda.
Similarly I do not believe that Robert Mugabe really believes that removing Anglo Rhodesians from Zimbabwe will make Zimbabwe a better place. He was just following the orders of the Globalist elites who gave him power by screwing Rhodesia of old as well as for looting the farms and wealth of the country for himself and his cronies.
Naive people rarely come into power and if they do, they do not stay in power for long. Naive idealistic childish people become SJWs, adopt African babies and become cannon fodder for some elite sponsored revolution. This has been the case for a long time.

I do not believe that the globalist elites (the Saudi regime is highly meshed with those elites) do not know HBD. They are well aware of it and have always been aware of it.

My boss (self-made garden variety millionaire whose parents are also millionaires) is totally unaware of it. If he were more successful in business and he became a billionaire, would someone suddenly tell him at some point? When was Bill Gates educated about HBD? When was Jeff Bezos? Sergey Brin? Larry Page?

You forgot that many in the elite were born into the upper middle class, whose members are just garden variety liberals. As they grew in power, they never suddenly became HBD nerds. They truly believe that the reason why black or brown peasants are doing worse than white peasants is because white peasants are racist and/or black and brown peasants’ poverty perpetuates itself in a vicious cycle of poverty.

Being naive about HBD is not incompatible with being a ruthless businessman or politician.

Even when someone is vaguely aware of some differences, it’s not the same thing as knowing them in detail. You also have no way of knowing if these differences you’re vaguely aware of are caused by genes or culture unless you think it through (and even so, you’d probably need to read a couple books or online summaries on HBD). Unless you’re really interested in it (and most people, elite or not, just aren’t) you will just accept what smart people at universities tell you about it. It surely works for cosmology or quantum mechanics, also for most of biology, why not for human racial differences?

It is amazing how the neo cons have taken over everybody's brains. Qatar has its own military. There is a US military base there. There is a Turkish Military base. Some sort of British presence. I would think Qatar could expect Iranian backup. And why not French backup not to mention Russia, China, who knows who else.

Those British, American, Chinese, Russian, Persian, Turkish soldiers are first class fighters but they just follow the orders of their political classes. And if their political classes accept the Saudi takeover of Qatar, the equation on the battlefield will be Qatari vs Saudi soldiers, Arab vs Arab. And when quality is same on both sides, the more numerous Saudis have an advantage.
Just like how the Iraqis had an advantage in numbers, weaponry and experience over the hapless Kuwaitis but the globalist elites wanted to screw Saddam and save Kuwait for their own reasons and that is why Kuwait is a free country today and not a province of Iraq.

However, the resource is a more general term. It refers to a nation with the "good luck" to have a massive resource other countries want, so it can just exploit that resource and not have to do much, you know, actual work.

The most famous example is Spain during its Golden Age, 1500s and early 1600s or so, though there are other examples. Spain was pulling in such massive amounts of money from mines it had conquered in Latin America that it really didn't need to produce anything. It just bought whatever it wanted from other countries. Which meant that in net effect money came into Spain and then went right back out, leaving in the long run nothing behind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Golden_Age

During its Golden Age Spain at least used its resource curse to dominate Europe militarily, fighting long wars against the English, French, Dutch and Ottomans. Did pretty well, too. Though they bit off far too much. Spain, which was the wealthiest and most powerful country on earth in 1600, was by 1800 pretty much a third world country, and continued to fall farther behind most of Europe till the late 20th.

They also produced a great deal of excellent art and literature. What have SA and other petrostates produced that will be of lasting value to anybody?

The Post Industrial revolution technological age gives the biggest advantage to Northern Europeans and North East Asians among all races. In the Northern Euro group you could add northern Mediterraneans like the people of Catalonia of Spain or the Northern Italians. Even if the British or the Dutch never had their empire, after the industrial revolution they were going to outdo Spain or Portugal or Turkey anyways. Similarly, the Spanish and the Portuguese would outperform Turkey and Turkey would outperform India or Yemen economically. The snow adapted Finns never needed a major empire like what the Ottomans or the British or the French had, to do well today.
We Indians had much better infrastructure and industrial base than what the Chinese had at the end of WW2 thanks to the British Raj (check out the railway coverage maps of both the countries from that era) yet now the more high IQ cold adapted Chinese have out competed us with ease in nearly every sector of technology and economy.

What have SA and other petrostates produced that will be of lasting value to anybody?

Likely nothing. Remember, SA is an amalgam of various regions including the Hijaz, Najran, Najd, etc. The ruling class of Saudis are those out of the Najd. That place produced nothing much of value (intellectual or physical) before the petro-boom so why would we expect them to magically produce anything after. They were just simple Bedouin going about their business - I suspect we wouldn't magically see amazing things come out of the nomadic Tuareg either if they suddenly came upon a trillion dollars. Same with much of the other petro-boom states.

Recall, the Brits first supported the ruler of the Hijaz before turning their back on him and supporting the Najdis.

Peace.

“Recall, the Brits first supported the ruler of the Hijaz before turning their back on him and supporting the Najdis.”

The British/Americans supported the Saud family because the Zionist/Globalist controlled British and American governments wanted the creation of Saudi Arabia for a number of long term geopolitical and economical objectives for the Zionist Globalists. One of those objectives was the creation of the petro dollar global empire. The other more important was a support for Israel. The same forces which created Israel also created Saudi Arabia.

Sheikh Imran Hosein was the official Imam for the U.N. and he definitely knows a thing or two.

Also check out what ex Saudi princess Janan Harb says at the end from 6:00 minutes to the end of the interview.

Thanks for the videos - especially that second one - wow, so Israelis are allowed to move through Saudi. Very interesting. That would mean there is some level of buy off from Jordan as well since the road would have to go through there for at least a few miles.

I do not believe that the globalist elites (the Saudi regime is highly meshed with those elites) do not know HBD. They are well aware of it and have always been aware of it. It is just that they are not interested in a better world. They are mostly unimaginative psychopaths who care about their own power and keeping their power. Their claims of wanting a better society is just window dressing to fool the commoners. I do not think Chancellor Angela Merkel is dumb enough to believe that allowing brown black masses into Europe will make Europe a better place. She very well knows that it will make Europe third world. The average libtard on the streets may be brainwashed to believe so, but not Merkel. Merkel is just carrying out a long term elite agenda. Similarly I do not believe that Robert Mugabe really believes that removing Anglo Rhodesians from Zimbabwe will make Zimbabwe a better place. He was just following the orders of the Globalist elites who gave him power by screwing Rhodesia of old as well as for looting the farms and wealth of the country for himself and his cronies. Naive people rarely come into power and if they do, they do not stay in power for long. Naive idealistic childish people become SJWs, adopt African babies and become cannon fodder for some elite sponsored revolution. This has been the case for a long time.

They are well aware of it and have always been aware of it

They thought Iraq would be a Western-style democracy. How do you reconcile the two?

They never wanted or expected Iraq to be a Western type democracy, that was just hogwash to the Western masses to justify the war. They wanted/expected the chaos to launch ISIS etc... for further destabilization of the Middle East as well as to create the migrant crisis into Europe. All this was planned a long time ago.

5. Bold scenario: Invade and annex Qatar, which has four times more oil production per capita than even Saudi Arabia. The Saudi military isn’t anything to write home about, but this should be quite doable, if the US is okay with it (which it probably is under Trump).

I do not believe that the globalist elites (the Saudi regime is highly meshed with those elites) do not know HBD. They are well aware of it and have always been aware of it. It is just that they are not interested in a better world. They are mostly unimaginative psychopaths who care about their own power and keeping their power. Their claims of wanting a better society is just window dressing to fool the commoners. I do not think Chancellor Angela Merkel is dumb enough to believe that allowing brown black masses into Europe will make Europe a better place. She very well knows that it will make Europe third world. The average libtard on the streets may be brainwashed to believe so, but not Merkel. Merkel is just carrying out a long term elite agenda. Similarly I do not believe that Robert Mugabe really believes that removing Anglo Rhodesians from Zimbabwe will make Zimbabwe a better place. He was just following the orders of the Globalist elites who gave him power by screwing Rhodesia of old as well as for looting the farms and wealth of the country for himself and his cronies. Naive people rarely come into power and if they do, they do not stay in power for long. Naive idealistic childish people become SJWs, adopt African babies and become cannon fodder for some elite sponsored revolution. This has been the case for a long time.

I do not believe that the globalist elites (the Saudi regime is highly meshed with those elites) do not know HBD. They are well aware of it and have always been aware of it.

My boss (self-made garden variety millionaire whose parents are also millionaires) is totally unaware of it. If he were more successful in business and he became a billionaire, would someone suddenly tell him at some point? When was Bill Gates educated about HBD? When was Jeff Bezos? Sergey Brin? Larry Page?

You forgot that many in the elite were born into the upper middle class, whose members are just garden variety liberals. As they grew in power, they never suddenly became HBD nerds. They truly believe that the reason why black or brown peasants are doing worse than white peasants is because white peasants are racist and/or black and brown peasants’ poverty perpetuates itself in a vicious cycle of poverty.

Being naive about HBD is not incompatible with being a ruthless businessman or politician.

Even when someone is vaguely aware of some differences, it’s not the same thing as knowing them in detail. You also have no way of knowing if these differences you’re vaguely aware of are caused by genes or culture unless you think it through (and even so, you’d probably need to read a couple books or online summaries on HBD). Unless you’re really interested in it (and most people, elite or not, just aren’t) you will just accept what smart people at universities tell you about it. It surely works for cosmology or quantum mechanics, also for most of biology, why not for human racial differences?

I agree with everything you wrote but by 'elite' I did not mean the 'elite' you described. The people you described are rich brainwashed sheepie professionals/businessmen. By elites, I mean the big banking, political elites, the ones at the top. I am describing Hillary Clinton and you are describing her high profile rich supporters. All the people you have described go through brain washing via magazines they read, universities they attend etc...And this brain washing is programmed and directed by the real 'elites' at the top.The people I am referring to are much higher on the pyramid.

People like your boss rarely come across lower class blacks and browns and the only darkies they come across are the high IQ civilized professional elite ones and hence they do not know HBD reality as a working class/middle class/small time businessmen White or East Asian would. They assume that a major chunk of the brown black crowd are just as high IQ/civilized as the ones he comes across. But these high IQ civilized browns form a much much smaller percentage of any brown ethnic population (lesser for blacks) as compared to any White or East Asian ethnic population.

Besides in brown people culture it is normal to kiss ass and behave like a slave bitch to successful super-rich powerful people and to despise those below you. Thus you see those Indian software programmers sucking up to their White bosses like a harem slut but arrogantly looking down upon working class White people. That is why people like your boss never see HBD reality and have a much higher opinion of brown blacks.

They thought Iraq would be a Western-style democracy. How do you reconcile the two?

They never wanted or expected Iraq to be a Western type democracy, that was just hogwash to the Western masses to justify the war. They wanted/expected the chaos to launch ISIS etc… for further destabilization of the Middle East as well as to create the migrant crisis into Europe. All this was planned a long time ago.

American/NATO operatives in the Middle East are encouraging the people there to move into Europe as well as providing them maps!!!!! People of the West must realize that their own governments are their greatest enemies. The globalist elites are using the wealth and soldiers of the West to interfere in the Middle East for their own economic and geopolitical aims and using the aftermath to destroy the people/culture/society of the West via mass migration. The old invade the World/Invite the World Scam. Jews/Banker elites have used Whites as weapons against the rest of the world using propaganda (White Man's burden, making the world safe for democracy) for their own geopolitical and economic aims and then use the brown black masses as weapons against Whites (Black lives matter, immigration etc...). Weaponised Migration, there is a book called 'Weapon's of Mass Migration' by Kelly Greenhill.

Not only the migrant crisis in Europe, the children migration to the USA from Central America and the Haitian migration into the USA via Mexico. All of them were planned, financed and directed by the same elites who attacked Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, Vietnam, Third Reich Germany/Italy/Japanese Empire. The same people.

They never wanted or expected Iraq to be a Western type democracy, that was just hogwash to the Western masses to justify the war. They wanted/expected the chaos to launch ISIS etc... for further destabilization of the Middle East as well as to create the migrant crisis into Europe. All this was planned a long time ago.

Check from 3:50 to 5:50

American/NATO operatives in the Middle East are encouraging the people there to move into Europe as well as providing them maps!!!!! People of the West must realize that their own governments are their greatest enemies. The globalist elites are using the wealth and soldiers of the West to interfere in the Middle East for their own economic and geopolitical aims and using the aftermath to destroy the people/culture/society of the West via mass migration. The old invade the World/Invite the World Scam. Jews/Banker elites have used Whites as weapons against the rest of the world using propaganda (White Man’s burden, making the world safe for democracy) for their own geopolitical and economic aims and then use the brown black masses as weapons against Whites (Black lives matter, immigration etc…). Weaponised Migration, there is a book called ‘Weapon’s of Mass Migration’ by Kelly Greenhill.

Not only the migrant crisis in Europe, the children migration to the USA from Central America and the Haitian migration into the USA via Mexico. All of them were planned, financed and directed by the same elites who attacked Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, Vietnam, Third Reich Germany/Italy/Japanese Empire. The same people.

I do not believe that the globalist elites (the Saudi regime is highly meshed with those elites) do not know HBD. They are well aware of it and have always been aware of it.

My boss (self-made garden variety millionaire whose parents are also millionaires) is totally unaware of it. If he were more successful in business and he became a billionaire, would someone suddenly tell him at some point? When was Bill Gates educated about HBD? When was Jeff Bezos? Sergey Brin? Larry Page?

You forgot that many in the elite were born into the upper middle class, whose members are just garden variety liberals. As they grew in power, they never suddenly became HBD nerds. They truly believe that the reason why black or brown peasants are doing worse than white peasants is because white peasants are racist and/or black and brown peasants’ poverty perpetuates itself in a vicious cycle of poverty.

Being naive about HBD is not incompatible with being a ruthless businessman or politician.

Even when someone is vaguely aware of some differences, it’s not the same thing as knowing them in detail. You also have no way of knowing if these differences you’re vaguely aware of are caused by genes or culture unless you think it through (and even so, you’d probably need to read a couple books or online summaries on HBD). Unless you’re really interested in it (and most people, elite or not, just aren’t) you will just accept what smart people at universities tell you about it. It surely works for cosmology or quantum mechanics, also for most of biology, why not for human racial differences?

I agree with everything you wrote but by ‘elite’ I did not mean the ‘elite’ you described. The people you described are rich brainwashed sheepie professionals/businessmen. By elites, I mean the big banking, political elites, the ones at the top. I am describing Hillary Clinton and you are describing her high profile rich supporters. All the people you have described go through brain washing via magazines they read, universities they attend etc…And this brain washing is programmed and directed by the real ‘elites’ at the top.
The people I am referring to are much higher on the pyramid.

I do not believe that the globalist elites (the Saudi regime is highly meshed with those elites) do not know HBD. They are well aware of it and have always been aware of it.

My boss (self-made garden variety millionaire whose parents are also millionaires) is totally unaware of it. If he were more successful in business and he became a billionaire, would someone suddenly tell him at some point? When was Bill Gates educated about HBD? When was Jeff Bezos? Sergey Brin? Larry Page?

You forgot that many in the elite were born into the upper middle class, whose members are just garden variety liberals. As they grew in power, they never suddenly became HBD nerds. They truly believe that the reason why black or brown peasants are doing worse than white peasants is because white peasants are racist and/or black and brown peasants’ poverty perpetuates itself in a vicious cycle of poverty.

Being naive about HBD is not incompatible with being a ruthless businessman or politician.

Even when someone is vaguely aware of some differences, it’s not the same thing as knowing them in detail. You also have no way of knowing if these differences you’re vaguely aware of are caused by genes or culture unless you think it through (and even so, you’d probably need to read a couple books or online summaries on HBD). Unless you’re really interested in it (and most people, elite or not, just aren’t) you will just accept what smart people at universities tell you about it. It surely works for cosmology or quantum mechanics, also for most of biology, why not for human racial differences?

People like your boss rarely come across lower class blacks and browns and the only darkies they come across are the high IQ civilized professional elite ones and hence they do not know HBD reality as a working class/middle class/small time businessmen White or East Asian would. They assume that a major chunk of the brown black crowd are just as high IQ/civilized as the ones he comes across. But these high IQ civilized browns form a much much smaller percentage of any brown ethnic population (lesser for blacks) as compared to any White or East Asian ethnic population.

Besides in brown people culture it is normal to kiss ass and behave like a slave bitch to successful super-rich powerful people and to despise those below you. Thus you see those Indian software programmers sucking up to their White bosses like a harem slut but arrogantly looking down upon working class White people. That is why people like your boss never see HBD reality and have a much higher opinion of brown blacks.

Your point is valid: upper class whites have no experience with blacks or browns, except for “talented tenth” types. But that’s actually true of all of the elite, including the media or financial elites, Hillary or Soros, all of them. They have no reason not to believe their own ideology.

The only (partial) exceptions are some Jews. There are Jews who have very conscious and well articulated opinions about the demographic situation of Israel. Yet they claim that gentiles thinking under similar terms about their own countries are evil. An even stranger example is Netanyahu, who actually mentioned how Europe as a whole and the V4 countries specifically will be affected by demographic changes, yet he unequivocally condemned German and Austrian parties fighting those demographic changes. I think he knows the score.

However, the resource is a more general term. It refers to a nation with the "good luck" to have a massive resource other countries want, so it can just exploit that resource and not have to do much, you know, actual work.

The most famous example is Spain during its Golden Age, 1500s and early 1600s or so, though there are other examples. Spain was pulling in such massive amounts of money from mines it had conquered in Latin America that it really didn't need to produce anything. It just bought whatever it wanted from other countries. Which meant that in net effect money came into Spain and then went right back out, leaving in the long run nothing behind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Golden_Age

During its Golden Age Spain at least used its resource curse to dominate Europe militarily, fighting long wars against the English, French, Dutch and Ottomans. Did pretty well, too. Though they bit off far too much. Spain, which was the wealthiest and most powerful country on earth in 1600, was by 1800 pretty much a third world country, and continued to fall farther behind most of Europe till the late 20th.

They also produced a great deal of excellent art and literature. What have SA and other petrostates produced that will be of lasting value to anybody?

The Bedus do not have much of a history in creativity in the arts and sciences. Most of the advancements in the Islamic world were done by non Arabs like the Persians or Arabised Middle Easterners such as the Syrians. Even the genius Ibn Khaldun writes about this in his book Muqaddimah. However there is one exception, the Bedouin traditionally have been excellent in the art of poetry and music. Maybe after the oil boom, many rich spoiled Saudis wrote and published great books on Arabic poetry and we are not aware of them yet.

Most Americans aren't aware of it, but within a couple of centuries Arabs lost military and political control of the empire they established to various non-Arab groups: Turks, Kurds, Berbers, Mongols, etc.

Never really got any political independence back until it was handed to them after WWI and WWII. The Sauds, however much they are open to criticism, are about the only Arab group that came to power based on their own actions.

I get the impression that the "resource curse" is a very simple mechanism: large oil reserves/oil production leads to overvalued currency, which leads to prohibiting labor costs, which leads to impossibility of any investments outside the oil production industry.

And I don't think there's any feasible way to fight it. Mullahs, princes, or not - it doesn't matter.

The strange thing about the resource curse is it only seems to happen to low IQ countries, no one ever speaks of Canada or Australia suffering from it. I am also confused as to why manufacturing is seen as preferable to resource extraction. Of course for low IQ countries like Saudi Arabia having abundant natural resources is unquestionably a blessing, otherwise they would just be another Yemen.

It’s usually called the Dutch disease, because the start of Dutch oil production led to a decline of Dutch manufacturing output. There were some arguments that the Netherlands were actually worse off (at least in a long run) than they’d be absent the oil.

That oil sat there under the Arabs feet for thousands of years. They never used it or had any use for it. It wasn't until other peoples developed things like cars, planes and ships that it suddenly had a purpose or value. Even with that, Arabs have had to import foreigners to do the specialised work to extract the oil. The problem with Arabs is their cult-religion of violence and hatred (a.k.a Islam), their culture, (no rights for women, widespread cousin marriage, etc.) and their low I.Q.'s.

A friend lives and works in Riyadh, he much prefers it to Tanzania. There is no crime and the streets are safe. The country is developed thanks to the oil money and their is a large expat community. Personally I would think that Wahhabi Islam is probably perfectly adapted to Arab peoples, bringing order to a previously unruly violent tribal culture. Even in Western cultures the adoption of the 60s ideology has led to catastrophic rises in societal dysfunction indicators.

Personally I would think that Wahhabi Islam is probably perfectly adapted to Arab peoples, bringing order to a previously unruly violent tribal culture.

Depends on which Arabs you are talking about. As I mentioned, Wahhabis came out of the Najd area which was actually a Bedouin no-man's land for centuries, ruled by local tribal leaders. Nobody had real interest in controlling that area (known for a lot of brigandry and such) - totally wasn't worth it. The only area that kept regular contact with the rest of the Muslim world was the Hijaz. This video gives a good account of it - watch what happens after the Qarmati revolt (based out of Bahrain) breaks Abbasid power over those desert areas; nobody asserts their power there again for a long time:
https://youtu.be/ymI5Uv5cGU4?t=9m50s

The initial Wahhabi uprising was bloody, very bloody - they excommunicated and attacked anybody who didn't agree with them; they had to be stopped by two Ottoman armies. Eventually, many of them became political quietists actually - which works out well, the best of them are - as Shaykh Hamza Yusuf mentioned - like "grumpy Amish". It's the ones that try to take over the ship of state that are troublesome since they have a very my-way-or-the-highway mentality even with other Muslims. My brother worked there for a stint and was surprised at the level of antipathy some had against non-Muslims. He came across a couple of them who thought; 1) it was prohibited to be friendly to a non-Muslim and 2) it was completely fine to kill a non-Muslim with any reason whatsoever - and they simply were impervious to any other view or evidence on the subject. Very scary.

The good thing is that some people at the top (even among the Wahhabi [Salafi] scholars) are realizing where the problem lies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyHeRImQOl0

The strange thing about the resource curse is it only seems to happen to low IQ countries, no one ever speaks of Canada or Australia suffering from it. I am also confused as to why manufacturing is seen as preferable to resource extraction. Of course for low IQ countries like Saudi Arabia having abundant natural resources is unquestionably a blessing, otherwise they would just be another Yemen.

It’s usually called the Dutch disease, because the start of Dutch oil production led to a decline of Dutch manufacturing output. There were some arguments that the Netherlands were actually worse off (at least in a long run) than they’d be absent the oil.

The imminent bankruptcy of the shale oil sector is something that is incessantly predicted but never seems to actually come.

There's a further important point. The global oil market is global. The United States managed to restore its 1970s era level of oil production even though its share of the world's oil reserves is very modest. Now consider what more through implementation of these new technologies will have in countries like Russia or Saudi Arbabia.

Shale is correctly termed a swing producer, unlike conventional they don’t require substantial up front investment and can start production quickly. Shale costs have shrunk as there is no longer a massive demand for rigs etc. and higher costs have also spurred innovation so a lot of shale plays are profitable at current prices. Shale won’t ever be hugely profitable, like a low cost conventional well can be, but it will ensure a cap is put on the oil price as production can be ramped up so quickly if their is a price rise.

I know the Dutch disease origin but obviously gas extraction had a better ROI, the Netherlands seems to be doing great anyway and once the gas is gone they have the IQ to do manufacturing again. I just find it is another excuse to explain away low IQ countries dysfunctionality. Oil doesn’t create corruption.

Well, I guess the lower IQ a country has, the less ability it has to tackle problems. If even high IQ Holland had problems due to its suddenly discovered resources, those problems must be way more difficult for low IQ countries which suddenly jump from the fourth world to first world level wealth.

People like your boss rarely come across lower class blacks and browns and the only darkies they come across are the high IQ civilized professional elite ones and hence they do not know HBD reality as a working class/middle class/small time businessmen White or East Asian would. They assume that a major chunk of the brown black crowd are just as high IQ/civilized as the ones he comes across. But these high IQ civilized browns form a much much smaller percentage of any brown ethnic population (lesser for blacks) as compared to any White or East Asian ethnic population.

Besides in brown people culture it is normal to kiss ass and behave like a slave bitch to successful super-rich powerful people and to despise those below you. Thus you see those Indian software programmers sucking up to their White bosses like a harem slut but arrogantly looking down upon working class White people. That is why people like your boss never see HBD reality and have a much higher opinion of brown blacks.

Your point is valid: upper class whites have no experience with blacks or browns, except for “talented tenth” types. But that’s actually true of all of the elite, including the media or financial elites, Hillary or Soros, all of them. They have no reason not to believe their own ideology.

The only (partial) exceptions are some Jews. There are Jews who have very conscious and well articulated opinions about the demographic situation of Israel. Yet they claim that gentiles thinking under similar terms about their own countries are evil. An even stranger example is Netanyahu, who actually mentioned how Europe as a whole and the V4 countries specifically will be affected by demographic changes, yet he unequivocally condemned German and Austrian parties fighting those demographic changes. I think he knows the score.

I know the Dutch disease origin but obviously gas extraction had a better ROI, the Netherlands seems to be doing great anyway and once the gas is gone they have the IQ to do manufacturing again. I just find it is another excuse to explain away low IQ countries dysfunctionality. Oil doesn't create corruption.

Well, I guess the lower IQ a country has, the less ability it has to tackle problems. If even high IQ Holland had problems due to its suddenly discovered resources, those problems must be way more difficult for low IQ countries which suddenly jump from the fourth world to first world level wealth.

Seems to me that Uncle would jump in right quick on Qatar's side, so there's that. I assume we don't want half of OPEC's production coming from a single super-sized Arab country. Because if we stood by, this annexation would kick off the Arab quest for unification that the Arab masses think has been thwarted by foreigners, from Kurds to Turks to Europeans to the superpowers, for a thousand years. And the al-Sauds might not even emerge on top when the dust clears.

If Uncle Sugar didn’t jump in, Tehran might. It would not end well for the Saudis, who already have enough problems subduing their own Shia.

The Bedus do not have much of a history in creativity in the arts and sciences. Most of the advancements in the Islamic world were done by non Arabs like the Persians or Arabised Middle Easterners such as the Syrians. Even the genius Ibn Khaldun writes about this in his book Muqaddimah. However there is one exception, the Bedouin traditionally have been excellent in the art of poetry and music. Maybe after the oil boom, many rich spoiled Saudis wrote and published great books on Arabic poetry and we are not aware of them yet.

Excellent comment.

Most Americans aren’t aware of it, but within a couple of centuries Arabs lost military and political control of the empire they established to various non-Arab groups: Turks, Kurds, Berbers, Mongols, etc.

Never really got any political independence back until it was handed to them after WWI and WWII. The Sauds, however much they are open to criticism, are about the only Arab group that came to power based on their own actions.

"Recall, the Brits first supported the ruler of the Hijaz before turning their back on him and supporting the Najdis."

The British/Americans supported the Saud family because the Zionist/Globalist controlled British and American governments wanted the creation of Saudi Arabia for a number of long term geopolitical and economical objectives for the Zionist Globalists. One of those objectives was the creation of the petro dollar global empire. The other more important was a support for Israel. The same forces which created Israel also created Saudi Arabia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-HcbX2Nsyk

Sheikh Imran Hosein was the official Imam for the U.N. and he definitely knows a thing or two.

Also check out what ex Saudi princess Janan Harb says at the end from 6:00 minutes to the end of the interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR7iwCuudwc

Thanks for the videos – especially that second one – wow, so Israelis are allowed to move through Saudi. Very interesting. That would mean there is some level of buy off from Jordan as well since the road would have to go through there for at least a few miles.

[* The very first thing AI will do is play dumb and pretend it does not have the capacity for agent-like behaviour so humans are not going to see it as a threat ]

tAIqiyyah madness!!!

Or computer Kol Nidre. Only humans can believe, a la Kant, that virtue is its own reward. Strong AI will be something alien, John Searle says a super-intelligent machine might not have mind and consciousness, but Colin McGinn says we cannot never understand consciousness because we are selected for other things, not to understand our own minds. A Superintelligence is going to be something totally alien and I suppose it might not be able to realise at first* that it is is telling lies.

* It will be able to acquire all human capabilities, and maybe some that no humans have.

Pakistan is far more dangerous than Saudi. Pakistan has the bomb* and reason to use it

A friend lives and works in Riyadh, he much prefers it to Tanzania. There is no crime and the streets are safe. The country is developed thanks to the oil money and their is a large expat community. Personally I would think that Wahhabi Islam is probably perfectly adapted to Arab peoples, bringing order to a previously unruly violent tribal culture. Even in Western cultures the adoption of the 60s ideology has led to catastrophic rises in societal dysfunction indicators.

Hey LondonBob,

Personally I would think that Wahhabi Islam is probably perfectly adapted to Arab peoples, bringing order to a previously unruly violent tribal culture.

Depends on which Arabs you are talking about. As I mentioned, Wahhabis came out of the Najd area which was actually a Bedouin no-man’s land for centuries, ruled by local tribal leaders. Nobody had real interest in controlling that area (known for a lot of brigandry and such) – totally wasn’t worth it. The only area that kept regular contact with the rest of the Muslim world was the Hijaz. This video gives a good account of it – watch what happens after the Qarmati revolt (based out of Bahrain) breaks Abbasid power over those desert areas; nobody asserts their power there again for a long time:

The initial Wahhabi uprising was bloody, very bloody – they excommunicated and attacked anybody who didn’t agree with them; they had to be stopped by two Ottoman armies. Eventually, many of them became political quietists actually – which works out well, the best of them are – as Shaykh Hamza Yusuf mentioned – like “grumpy Amish”. It’s the ones that try to take over the ship of state that are troublesome since they have a very my-way-or-the-highway mentality even with other Muslims. My brother worked there for a stint and was surprised at the level of antipathy some had against non-Muslims. He came across a couple of them who thought; 1) it was prohibited to be friendly to a non-Muslim and 2) it was completely fine to kill a non-Muslim with any reason whatsoever – and they simply were impervious to any other view or evidence on the subject. Very scary.

The good thing is that some people at the top (even among the Wahhabi [Salafi] scholars) are realizing where the problem lies:

Or computer Kol Nidre. Only humans can believe, a la Kant, that virtue is its own reward. Strong AI will be something alien, John Searle says a super-intelligent machine might not have mind and consciousness, but Colin McGinn says we cannot never understand consciousness because we are selected for other things, not to understand our own minds. A Superintelligence is going to be something totally alien and I suppose it might not be able to realise at first* that it is is telling lies.

* It will be able to acquire all human capabilities, and maybe some that no humans have.

Pakistan is far more dangerous than Saudi. Pakistan has the bomb* and reason to use it

China gave them it and the ICBMs too. Just like North Korea.

Definitely agree with you that caution is indeed called for when trying to come up with a super-intelligence.

That oil sat there under the Arabs feet for thousands of years. They never used it or had any use for it. It wasn't until other peoples developed things like cars, planes and ships that it suddenly had a purpose or value. Even with that, Arabs have had to import foreigners to do the specialised work to extract the oil. The problem with Arabs is their cult-religion of violence and hatred (a.k.a Islam), their culture, (no rights for women, widespread cousin marriage, etc.) and their low I.Q.'s.

All evidence points to it destroying a country & causing demographic change within a few generations. Both historically like Rome, Greece, Persia & now with the coming death of the Huwhyte race and maybe Hindus as well।।

All evidence points to it destroying a country & causing demographic change within a few generations. Both historically like Rome, Greece, Persia & now with the coming death of the Huwhyte race and maybe Hindus as well।।

MBS has started and supported too many wars: the war against Libya, then against Syria, then against the Yemen, now against the Qatar and today the Hezbollah and Iran. But that is not enough for him, he is now at war against his own family and the whahhabi clerics.
With his family, even after having tortured them to sign the transfer of their weath to him, he will kill them all to avoid retaliation. MBS is worse than Stalin but so far he did not dare Killing his own father. He is a monster.
By the way the international companies which will accept the razzia made by MBS on his family will become receivers. They should froze all this assets until their present owners are free. They should not participate in this robbery.
Who can believe that MBS educated in the US has any understanding of Islam ? How can MBS influence the whahhabi clerics if not by terrorism. In Iran the previous Shah failed for not fully understanding the power of the Shia clerics. It will be the same for MBS. His money and his savaregy will not save him : Gott sei Dank!

A friend lives and works in Riyadh, he much prefers it to Tanzania. There is no crime and the streets are safe. The country is developed thanks to the oil money and their is a large expat community. Personally I would think that Wahhabi Islam is probably perfectly adapted to Arab peoples, bringing order to a previously unruly violent tribal culture. Even in Western cultures the adoption of the 60s ideology has led to catastrophic rises in societal dysfunction indicators.

“Personally I would think that Wahhabi Islam is probably perfectly adapted to Arab peoples, bringing order to a previously unruly violent tribal culture. ”

I think the right term is Sharia Law. If you ask me, even though I am not muslim, many things in Sharia Law seems quite sensible and logical.

Thanks for the videos - especially that second one - wow, so Israelis are allowed to move through Saudi. Very interesting. That would mean there is some level of buy off from Jordan as well since the road would have to go through there for at least a few miles.

Has there been an example of a head of government or state kidnapped while on a diplomatic visit in another country?

I can think of a few near-examples, but they were all somewhat different.

The Soviets kidnapped the Hungarian defense minister Colonel Maléter in Budapest in 1956 when he entered the building of the local Soviet command to conduct talks about Soviet troops leaving Hungary. He was only a minister and these weren't real diplomatic talks, only talks between soldiers.

The Germans cut off communications of Hungarian regent Admiral Horthy's entourage with Hungary in March 1944 while conducting talks in Klessheim in Germany (present day Austria). They also delayed their return. It was implicit that unless they accept German troops entering Hungary, they would be arrested, but they weren't exactly kidnapped at the time. Later that year, in October, Horthy's son was kidnapped in Budapest by occupying German troops. Horthy himself was later arrested (after some firefight with his bodyguards he surrendered), and sent to concentration camp. Again, this was not a real kidnapping, and it wasn't during diplomatic talks.

While President Hácha was in Dresden in March 1939, he was openly abused and threatened by Hitler and his associates until he and his entourage accepted Hitler's demands of Czechia becoming the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. It was implied that they would be detained if they rejected, but in the end it didn't happen.

This last one might be the best example of what the Saudis just did. Are there other examples?

Wow! I had never even thought about that possibility before, but it is definitely something one can pull off in the confusion of the Hajj (having performed Hajj myself). It is pretty damning that so many high-level officials ended up dying and that the stampede happened to by-and-large affect Irani pilgrims.

Really crazy stuff, but I don't doubt the Saudis would be willing to pull this off.

Has there been an example of a head of government or state kidnapped while on a diplomatic visit in another country?

I can think of a few near-examples, but they were all somewhat different.

The Soviets kidnapped the Hungarian defense minister Colonel Maléter in Budapest in 1956 when he entered the building of the local Soviet command to conduct talks about Soviet troops leaving Hungary. He was only a minister and these weren’t real diplomatic talks, only talks between soldiers.

The Germans cut off communications of Hungarian regent Admiral Horthy’s entourage with Hungary in March 1944 while conducting talks in Klessheim in Germany (present day Austria). They also delayed their return. It was implicit that unless they accept German troops entering Hungary, they would be arrested, but they weren’t exactly kidnapped at the time. Later that year, in October, Horthy’s son was kidnapped in Budapest by occupying German troops. Horthy himself was later arrested (after some firefight with his bodyguards he surrendered), and sent to concentration camp. Again, this was not a real kidnapping, and it wasn’t during diplomatic talks.

While President Hácha was in Dresden in March 1939, he was openly abused and threatened by Hitler and his associates until he and his entourage accepted Hitler’s demands of Czechia becoming the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. It was implied that they would be detained if they rejected, but in the end it didn’t happen.

This last one might be the best example of what the Saudis just did. Are there other examples?

Wow! I had never even thought about that possibility before, but it is definitely something one can pull off in the confusion of the Hajj (having performed Hajj myself). It is pretty damning that so many high-level officials ended up dying and that the stampede happened to by-and-large affect Irani pilgrims.

Really crazy stuff, but I don’t doubt the Saudis would be willing to pull this off.

Has there been an example of a head of government or state kidnapped while on a diplomatic visit in another country?

I can think of a few near-examples, but they were all somewhat different.

The Soviets kidnapped the Hungarian defense minister Colonel Maléter in Budapest in 1956 when he entered the building of the local Soviet command to conduct talks about Soviet troops leaving Hungary. He was only a minister and these weren't real diplomatic talks, only talks between soldiers.

The Germans cut off communications of Hungarian regent Admiral Horthy's entourage with Hungary in March 1944 while conducting talks in Klessheim in Germany (present day Austria). They also delayed their return. It was implicit that unless they accept German troops entering Hungary, they would be arrested, but they weren't exactly kidnapped at the time. Later that year, in October, Horthy's son was kidnapped in Budapest by occupying German troops. Horthy himself was later arrested (after some firefight with his bodyguards he surrendered), and sent to concentration camp. Again, this was not a real kidnapping, and it wasn't during diplomatic talks.

While President Hácha was in Dresden in March 1939, he was openly abused and threatened by Hitler and his associates until he and his entourage accepted Hitler's demands of Czechia becoming the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. It was implied that they would be detained if they rejected, but in the end it didn't happen.

This last one might be the best example of what the Saudis just did. Are there other examples?

Has there been an example of a head of government or state kidnapped while on a diplomatic visit in another country?

I can think of a few near-examples, but they were all somewhat different.

The Soviets kidnapped the Hungarian defense minister Colonel Maléter in Budapest in 1956 when he entered the building of the local Soviet command to conduct talks about Soviet troops leaving Hungary. He was only a minister and these weren't real diplomatic talks, only talks between soldiers.

The Germans cut off communications of Hungarian regent Admiral Horthy's entourage with Hungary in March 1944 while conducting talks in Klessheim in Germany (present day Austria). They also delayed their return. It was implicit that unless they accept German troops entering Hungary, they would be arrested, but they weren't exactly kidnapped at the time. Later that year, in October, Horthy's son was kidnapped in Budapest by occupying German troops. Horthy himself was later arrested (after some firefight with his bodyguards he surrendered), and sent to concentration camp. Again, this was not a real kidnapping, and it wasn't during diplomatic talks.

While President Hácha was in Dresden in March 1939, he was openly abused and threatened by Hitler and his associates until he and his entourage accepted Hitler's demands of Czechia becoming the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. It was implied that they would be detained if they rejected, but in the end it didn't happen.

This last one might be the best example of what the Saudis just did. Are there other examples?

Horthy himself was later arrested (after some firefight with his bodyguards he surrendered), and sent to concentration camp.

I mixed him up with his prime minister Kállay, who indeed was in a concentration camp. Horthy was only captive in a castle in Bavaria. Kállay was arrested after German troops occupied Hungary, so it was also not an example of being arrested while on a diplomatic visit.

Horthy himself was later arrested (after some firefight with his bodyguards he surrendered), and sent to concentration camp.

Horthy was in a concentration camp?

I mixed him up with his prime minister Kállay, who indeed was in a concentration camp. Horthy was only captive in a castle in Bavaria. Kállay was arrested after German troops occupied Hungary, so it was also not an example of being arrested while on a diplomatic visit.

Wow! I had never even thought about that possibility before, but it is definitely something one can pull off in the confusion of the Hajj (having performed Hajj myself). It is pretty damning that so many high-level officials ended up dying and that the stampede happened to by-and-large affect Irani pilgrims.

Really crazy stuff, but I don't doubt the Saudis would be willing to pull this off.

Some of it makes sense and some is off the charts. To be honest, the top level Saudi scholars (which are mostly Salafi-Wahhabi) have been pretty consistent on denouncing things like indiscriminate suicide bombing and such. But denouncing Hamas as a whole (and not simply criticizing some of its tactics) is a completely new paradigm shift. The Saudis keep moving further and further away from the Muslim world - this is not a good sign.

I think the assassination of King Faisal was the turning point - he was actually admired by many and seemed to be a reasonable person (probably what got him killed).

Some of it makes sense and some is off the charts. To be honest, the top level Saudi scholars (which are mostly Salafi-Wahhabi) have been pretty consistent on denouncing things like indiscriminate suicide bombing and such. But denouncing Hamas as a whole (and not simply criticizing some of its tactics) is a completely new paradigm shift. The Saudis keep moving further and further away from the Muslim world – this is not a good sign.

I think the assassination of King Faisal was the turning point – he was actually admired by many and seemed to be a reasonable person (probably what got him killed).

The crown prince is unfortunately totally ignorant of HBD. This is one instance where HBD knowledge would be helpful to those (or their leaders) who are deemed "inferior" by HBD. Like, once you acknowledge that Arabs are Arabs and will always be Arabs (the crown prince must know that implicitly, but it's much less useful than explicit knowledge), he would forget about wasting a lot of resources on

- building hi-tech cities and "innovation centers" or whatever
- buying more weapons than are necessary to provide for security (his army won't be able to use them)
- starting wars (see above)

On the other hand, he might try to break cousin marriage patterns, which would result in a more talented generation within a few decades (i.e. within the lifetime of the crown prince). He might try to think about what are the economic activities which are still suited for a dumb and lazy people with a strict and xenophobic religion. (I can't think of any, but I didn't think much about it.)

Of course, if he were smart, he wouldn't spend money on a yacht.

Why break cousin marriage patterns only? Somebody get me the prince’s phone number or e-mail. We must convince the saudis to invest in the Beijing Genomics Institute research of IQ, so that we can build genetic engineering centers in the muslim world populous centers like Anatolia, Iranian plateau and increase IQ to above all world population levels. All you do is Crispr-cas9.

It is my belief that HBD facts should be publicly discussed by all muslim imams, mullahs, religious leaders. We must to eugenics-IQ jihad. The Chinese will help us with this. There is hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth owned by Arabian royal houses, they need to be given HBD and genetic presentations to convince them to invest in BGI research.

The Post Industrial revolution technological age gives the biggest advantage to Northern Europeans and North East Asians among all races. In the Northern Euro group you could add northern Mediterraneans like the people of Catalonia of Spain or the Northern Italians. Even if the British or the Dutch never had their empire, after the industrial revolution they were going to outdo Spain or Portugal or Turkey anyways. Similarly, the Spanish and the Portuguese would outperform Turkey and Turkey would outperform India or Yemen economically. The snow adapted Finns never needed a major empire like what the Ottomans or the British or the French had, to do well today. We Indians had much better infrastructure and industrial base than what the Chinese had at the end of WW2 thanks to the British Raj (check out the railway coverage maps of both the countries from that era) yet now the more high IQ cold adapted Chinese have out competed us with ease in nearly every sector of technology and economy.

Oddly, it appears the Inuit, the most cold-adapted people of all, have an average IQ of around 91.

All evidence points to it destroying a country & causing demographic change within a few generations. Both historically like Rome, Greece, Persia & now with the coming death of the Huwhyte race and maybe Hindus as well।।

Rome, Greece and Persia were all of course renowned for their feminism.

Panhandling

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Blogroll

This is not so much meant to be comprehensive as to illustrate the themes and individual thinkers whom I follow and am inspired by.

I do not bother including any MSM outlets, since I’m sure they can do just fine without my publicity.

Blogs which I consider to be particularly good and/or prominent are highlighted in bold, and blogs that appear to have gone dormant appear at the end in italics. While I try to keep these things objective, if you include me in your blogroll that does vastly increase the chances that I’ll reciprocate.

Friends/Allies (Russia)

Indeed; Portugal is puzzling in view of the fact that Lisbon was the first modern European city that a sub-Saharan African ever saw. And there is some "nappy-headiness" in the current White peninsular Portuguese genetic woodpile.

Frustrated? No I am not frustrated. I wrote in a previous post the reasons I don't believe in AI: spatio-temporal awareness, assessment of context in space and time, disambiguation that can only be based on probability and therefore can only be partial and never absolute. Concepts are one thing, ...

And if Hezbollah weren’t a formidable force or the Israelis didn’t fear heavy casualties, one wonders why Israel didn’t take advantage of the Syria War when they were heavily engaged and attack their southern Lebanon redoubt to clean them out
Why would Israel attack Hezbollah? Let's say...

During the 2020s, it seems quite possible that freight automobiles will begin to be electrified.
Aussie researchers have just come up with a carbon-based battery technology that is already at parity with lithium-ion batteries (in terms of performance; I have no idea what the manufacturing bar...

I prefer to simply openly state that I am racist and that racism is objectively correct
I would advise against it. It is not smart. If racism is a belief that races are different this is a proposition that can be objectively tested. But if by racism you mean your attitude and actions with re...

You realize that modern agriculture, especially at the industrial level is based on petrochemicals. Without outside energy to make fertilizer, pesticides and fuel to transport and process the stuff you are going to be left with much less energy. That there isn't enough area to grow all that c...

You must be aware of nowadays "industry of the scientific articles". It has gone so far, that nobody can now qualify the value of some scientist, or his work - because they are all in a "publish game", paying big amounts to be published in mainstream scientific reviews, be quoted by "friendly" sc...

AI is non sense because whatever code you feed machines, they will never have instinct and they will never have more than 50% accuracy when dealing with highly ambiguous situations. A human can always assess a context, a machine can’t.
What is instinct? It is just a forward loop from a parti...

Norwegian is demonstrably closer to Danish than Swedish and not just in terms of vocabulary. Sweden isn’t sufficiently dominant for it to be appropriate to impose the Swedish language on the other Scandinavian countries.
This is false. All studies I have seen show that intelligibility levels ar...

Ukraine doesn’t belong in the category because it has a different language form Russian (it is more different from Russian than Norwegian is from Danish). Ukrainian is, actually, as close to Polish as it is to Russian. And it has a longer history with Poland.
This argument is not as strong as ...

'...Indeed, between 1951-2001, thousands of articles and many books and monographs were published mainly in the mainstream Russian scientific journals proving abiotic petroleum origins...'
But wait...we have it on good authority here...by way of Anatoly 'Uncle Tolya' Karlin...that Russians har...

it does not face many of the same challenges of other countries
I think they actually do face similar challenges but they manage to find other solutions. England instead of becoming an empire and looking for problems all over the world could have opted for a similar path as Switzerland which...

Poor fellow, don't you know Sweden is always inside you?
It's the reason you've managed to take the reasonable and wholesome practice of hating the Ukraine and make it embarrassing to be associated with.

I think we had discussion on this already. Then I think I said that if we assume materialistic world the consciousness is an epiphenomenon, i.e., has no causative power. So why did it emerge? Is it necessary? Inevitable at some level of complexity of a wet computer? Does it have any functio...

"Dude is a Hezbollah mouthpiece who has lost all grasp on reality over the last year. Assad will NEVER get the Kurdish regions back and the US isn’t leaving." I wouldn't be as sure the U.S. can sustain a forever occupation of eastern Syria as you or the conventional wisdom. And if Hezbollah wer...

Fe-man-ist is a funny coinage.
I object to some of the various natalist religions on aesthetic grounds, and I hope we can get this done while preserving a real sense of style. I recently wrote a new company dress code which includes the line,
Tasteful cleavage is welcomed and encouraged by man...